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Brown Blasts Congressional Effort to Gut Clean Air Act

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Contact: (415) 703-5837, agpressoffice@doj.ca.gov

California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today called on Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Virginia, to scrap his assault on the Clean Air Act and drop his proposed legislation to repeal current U.S. EPA authority to curb greenhouse gases.

Brown said that Boucher’s proposal would be “a death blow to California’s pioneering efforts to restrict tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions and a blatant assault on the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to fight global warming.”

The proposed bill is the subject of a hearing scheduled for Thursday June 7, 2007, before the House Energy & Air Quality Subcommittee. Rep. Boucher, who chairs the subcommittee, proposed the legislation to remove the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles and bar California from setting its own global warming standards.

Brown joined 14 state attorneys general in voicing strong opposition, noting that the proposed bill would amend the Clean Air Act in “fundamentally short-sighted ways.” Under the Clean Air Act, California can adopt standards stricter than federal rules by requesting a waiver from EPA.